Motivation for domestic tourism: a case study of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Tourism motivation in developing countries and Islamic culture has received scant attention from researchers. The key to understanding tourism motivation is to see holiday travel as a satisfier of needs and wants. Literature on tourism often conceptualizes tourist motives in terms of push and pull forces. The idea behind this concept is that people travel because they are pushed by their own internal forces and pulled by external forces of the destination attributes. One way to realize travel motivation is to examine the notion of push and pull demand stimulation. The objectives of this research were to understand both push and pull motivation for domestic tourism and the relationship between the two motivations for Saudi tourists. The finding indicated nine push factors (cultural value, utilitarian, knowledge, social, economical, family togetherness, interest, relaxation, and convenience of facilities) and nine pull factors (safety, activity, beach sports/activities, nature/outdoor, historical/cultural, religious, budget, leisure, and upscale). This study found that the most important push and pull factors as perceived by Saudi tourists are ``cultural value'' and ``religious.'' The study also confirms the relationship between push and pull factors